Taste profiles for edible compositions include basic tastes such as sweet, salt, bitter, sour, umami and kokumi. Taste profiles have also been described as including free fatty acid tastes. Chemical compounds that elicit these tastes are often referred to as tastants. Without being bound by theory, it is hypothesized that tastants are sensed by taste receptors in the mouth and throat which transmit signals to the brain where the tastants and resulting taste profiles are registered. Taste receptors include the calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), which is a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) that detects changes in extracellular calcium levels and a close relative to the T1R1, T1R2 and T1R3 receptors, i.e., the sweet and umami receptors. The calcium-sensing receptor has been shown to enhance sweet, salty and umami tastes, and function as a receptor for kokumi taste.
Pet food manufacturers have a long-standing desire to provide pet food products that have high nutritional value. In addition, and with particular regard to cat and dog foods, pet food manufacturers desire a high degree of palatability so that pets can receive the full nutritional benefit from their food. Domestic animals, especially cats, are notoriously fickle in their food preferences, and often refuse to eat a pet food product that it has accepted over time or refuse to eat any more than a minimal amount of a pet food product. This phenomenon may be, in part, due to the subtle differences in the sensory profiles of the raw material, which can be perceived by the domestic animals because of their gustatory and olfactory systems. As a result, pet owners frequently change types and brands of pet food in order to maintain their pets in a healthy and contented condition.
While there have been recent advances in taste and flavor technologies, there remains a need for compounds that can enhance or modify the palatability of pet food products by enhancing or modifying the taste, texture and/or flavor profiles of the pet food product. The enhancement or modification can be to increase the intensity of a desirable attribute, to replace a desirable attribute not present or somehow lost in the pet food product, or to decrease the intensity of an undesirable attribute. In particular, it is desirable to increase the intensity of a desirable tastant in a pet food product.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for methods to identify compounds that enhance the palatability and/or modulate the kokumi taste of pet food products and for flavor compositions comprising these compounds.